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Managers should take the time to recognize all employees on a regular basis, experts say -- focusing on behaviors they want to reinforce -- rather than singling out certain individuals or groups at scheduled times.

Researchers and experts often examine different generations in the workplace, looking for clues to improve management effectiveness. Recent studies suggest that employers should think twice before making stereotypical assumptions about individual employees based on age.

SHRM researchers measured the gap between the importance of each aspect of job satisfaction and respondents’ satisfaction levels with them.

The gap was largest for compensation/pay, at 38 percentage points, followed by communication between employees and senior management, at 35 percentage points. The importance/satisfaction gap for job security was 31 percentage points.

Given the economic factors at play from 2001 to 2011, it’s hardly surprising that employees ranked job security as the most important factor for job satisfaction. This is no longer the case, however, according to new Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) research.

U.S. employers often treat “the holiday season” as the period from November to January each year, says Mark Fowler of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, and design policies to fit U.S. norms. But these practices can exclude those with other religious beliefs.

Employees are more likely to trust their supervisor or manager than they are to trust the senior leaders in their organization, a recent survey finds. Nevertheless, experts encourage leaders to work on building trust.

A survey of 2,700 employees released Aug. 7, 2012, by the management consulting firm Healthy Companies International found that two-thirds of respondents (66%) said their boss earns the trust of employees.

When asked to rate their manager on a list of specific behaviors, most employees agreed their boss is open to suggestions, acts in an ethical manner and listens to employees’ concerns. However, 41% disagreed when asked if their boss handles workplace conflict effectively.

Research on employee engagement often contains advice for employers on how to maximize engagement -- and the importance of sustaining such efforts long-term.

For example, even though 67 % of employees at nearly 5,000 Best Places to Work Survey organizations in the U.S. were engaged at the end of 2011, engagement has yet to return to pre-recession levels, the report noted.